Amanda and her husband found the news that Netflix was un-bundling DVD and streaming video packages and raising prices disappointing, as did most other customers. They figured that they didn’t have to worry about canceling or changing their subscription until early 2012, though, because they had received a one-year subscription as a gift. Twelve prepaid months is twelve prepaid months, right? Nope. From Netflix’s point of view, the gift giver didn’t pay for a fixed number of months for the couple–he prepaid a certain amount of money, and the length of their subscription was readjusted once the price went up. Amanda got some clarification from Netflix on this issue. Her prepaid subscription is being left just as it is.

When Netflix announced it would split up its streaming and disc subscriptions, making customers choose streaming or one-disc-at-a-time plans at $7.99 a month each, it didn’t offer much of an explanation as to why the price hike was needed. A writer at The Motley Fool took CEO Reed Hastings to task and asked him to justify the increase, and was surprised to get a response.